Very slow performance; external boot drive the cause?

Greetings.
I bought a 500 GB Hitachi drive for my iMac intending to install it myself. But, alas, I have an iSight iMac and I think it's beyond my ability to do the job. A Mac dealer nearby can do it for me, but wants the computer for two or three days, even thought the installation takes about an hour. They will not make an appointment for me to come in with it and wait.
So I installed it the drive in an OWC Mercury Elite case, cloned the original drive, and have been booting from the Hitachi via Firewire 400. Just about everything is running at well under previous speeds. Lightroom now takes as much as two to five minutes to spool a large file for printing and sometimes does not even send the file to the printer (in fairness, the latter issue happened sometimes with the internal drive – I wrote about it here before – but at least it didn't take a long time to spool the file, which has to happen each time I click "print" until at last it actually goes to the printer).
I'm getting slow performance from Safari (4.1.3), Mail (2.1.3), Lighroom 2, Photoshop (CS3). I can't say I've noticed problems elsewhere, but I rarely use other applications.
I have done all the usual maintenance tasks, besides those the computer does automatically. Repaired permissions. Emptied caches. Burned sage. Etc.
If this is the inevitable result of running from an external disk, then I'll have to brave the installation or pay someone to do it (which I would do immediately if I knew someone who would do it "while-u-wait").
If, however, this sounds like booting from the external drive should not be the problem, and there is something I might do to speed things up, I'd be grateful for your suggestions.
As always, thank you.
Leonard B.

Too bad about the site redesign. I had a draft of this message started, then got busy. Now I have no idea where to look for it. (And what happened to the Preview function?)
ANYWAY… I talked to a tech person at Other World Computing about the problem. He was of the opinion that the iMac SHOULD be showing some slower response if booted from the external drive, but that maybe the sluggishness in this case was excessive. He had me run a hardware scan to see whether there were any bad blocks. After 24 hours, Speed Tools reported no problems. So now I have run every diagnostic and repair tool I know of and every one that was suggested (every one that I own, that is), and the computer is still hesitating so much that I just have to get up and walk away from it sometimes in order to stay sane.
I am booting from the original hard drive when I have to do extended internet research (Safari being the biggest speed offender), but run the iMac from the external drive when I have to do photo editing, since all my preferences, Lightroom libraries, etc., are located there. If I had the time to figure out just where the essential, and relevant, system and application files are located, I suppose that I could copy them and move them onto the internal drive. Then I could just use the external for storage of the image files (can't do that on the internal; there's not enough space). However, if what is going on (slowness issue) is indicative of a faulty drive, I'd rather not use it at all, even as a storage or backup drive.
Any thoughts? Do you suppose this might be a problem with the computer, not with the new drive? I'd hate to ask OWC to exchange it (even if they would do that) and then find out I've got the same trouble.
Thanks again in advance.
Leonard

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